Lisa Millar and Ally Langdon are on different TV channels, and they’re up against each other for the TV WEEK Gold Logie this year. But they have an unbreakable friendship that was forged over bad coffee in an airport food court.
While Lisa now hosts Back Roads and Muster Dogs, and Ally hosts A Current Affair, in 2022, they were both sent to the UK to cover Queen Elizabeth’s death, and ended up on the same plane flying back to Australia afterwards.
“I was in economy, and she was not,” Lisa tells TV WEEK. “And she said, ‘Come with me when we land in Singapore and I’ll get you into the lounge.’ But they wouldn’t let me in, so I said, ‘Oh, Ally, you go and have a shower.’ And she was like, ‘No, let’s just go to the food court.’ She sat in the food court and bought the worst coffee ever and we chatted.
“And this is when she had her knee that she’d damaged. So she was nursing an injury.
“‘Top-shelf human’ is how I would describe her. I think she’s just awesome. She’s a girl’s girl – she looks out for women – and I hope that people feel that same way about me.”
This is Lisa’s second Gold Logie nomination, and also Ally’s second. They were both nominated for Gold for the first time last year.
“Honestly, last year, the whole way through, I was Ally’s cheer squad and back at me from her,” Lisa says. “We were so thrilled that we’d both been nominated. And she admitted to feeling a little stressed about it.
“And I just went, ‘Ally, this is only going to happen to us once in our lives. We have got to have fun, right? Have all the fun! Go to the party till they throw you out!’”
This year, Lisa arrived at the photo shoot for the Gold Logie nominees and found Ally was already there.
“It was just the most awesome moment to turn up and see her sitting in the chair next to me when we were having our makeup done. And I said, ‘Oh, well, it turned out I was wrong! It wasn’t just once in our lives – what a bonus!’”
This year, all four female Gold Logie nominees – Lisa, Ally, Poh Ling Yeow and Julia Morris – are over the age of 45. Lisa feels like things have changed for women in the TV industry, in terms of the way people view older women on television.
“If you’d told me that I was still going to be having these kinds of experiences in my fifties… I mean, I’m three years off 60! I don’t feel like it. But yeah, I do think it’s definitely changed, certainly from when I started in the business.”
Lisa says one of the best things that happened recently was when actress-turned-farmer Rachel Ward hit back at the trolls who had made comments about her looking older.
“My God, I was just cheering from the sidelines,” Lisa says.
“I never hide my age. I’m 57. I am so proud of what I’m doing at 57. I’m not trying to pretend I’m younger.
“I’m so happy just to be in this universe, on this planet, at this very moment.”
Catch the TV WEEK Logie Awards 2026 on Sunday August 16 on Channel Seven and 7Plus.
